by Bob Barr | Jun 26, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com by Bob Barr No person shall be . . . deprived of . . . property, without due process of law. — U.S. Constitution, Amend. V No . . . ex post facto Law shall be passed. — U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 9 Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kinda cool. — Paul Begala, Advisor to Former President Bill Clinton, July 5, 1998 Two bulwarks of individual liberty – that the government cannot seize a person’s property without due process of law, and that it cannot prosecute an individual for an action that was lawful when the person performed the act – are threatened by a single regulation now pending before the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), a component of the United States Department of Justice. The regulation is designed to prohibit people from possessing so-called “bump stocks,” as apparently had been used by mass murderer Stephen Paddock last October 1st in Las Vegas. While the intent of the proposed regulation may be considered laudable by many, the procedural precedent it would set should cause serious concern for anyone who supports limited and accountable government. This regulation would establish a precedent according to which the federal government (specifically, unelected employees of the ATF) would be empowered to seize property from any individual without affording them any compensation, and rendering anyone who fails to turn in or destroy such property subject to federal criminal penalties. All this notwithstanding that the to-be-prohibited property (“bump stocks”) had been previously deemed a lawful firearm accessory by that very same agency. That an administration which declares itself supportive...
by Bob Barr | Jun 20, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Townhall.com by Bob Barr Despite the requirement in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution that only the Congress has the power to “declare war,” the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), an agency of the Executive Branch, has been engaged for more than half a century in an all-out war on what it obviously considers the most dangerous foe on Earth – tobacco. FDA war lords now are launching an all-out assault on “flavored” tobacco products. If successful, this effort will drive from retail shelves across America virtually every pipe tobacco product, menthol-flavored cigarettes and flavored cigars, along with any other product that combines tobacco and flavoring agents. And even that result will not be sufficient victory for the desk-bound generals at FDA. These bureaucratic nannies consider e-cigarettes to be “tobacco,” notwithstanding they contain nary a scintilla of tobacco. Therefore vaping products, which come in a wide variety of flavors, would be crushed out of legal existence if a regulatory edict now under consideration by FDA is permitted to become final. The early battles waged by the FDA against tobacco were based on legislation passed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and targeted cigarettes as public enemy number one. However, during the two-year window from 2009 to 2010 when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, the agency was given what it had long coveted – legislative power to go after premium cigars, flavored tobacco products, and e-cigarettes (commonly referred to as “vaping”). Now, armed with the regulatory power to dismantle these other industries the same way it has attacked the...
by Bob Barr | Jun 13, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Bob Barr Townhall.com The swearing-in of a public official has always been a solemn event; during which extreme ideology and partisan theatrics were put aside. Even the use of a Bible was a tradition respected by conservatives and liberals alike; not always for religious reasons, but in recognition that swearing on top of our culture’s most-sacred tome was a sign of the significance of the vows and of one’s commitment thereto. Recently, however, things have gone badly off track. The slow creep of post-modern subjectivism finally has made its way into the swearing-in process itself. Now, it seems anything goes. Take, for instance, the recent swearing-in of 26-year-old Mariah Parker, as a Commissioner for Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. The raised fist during her vows and comically unserious theatrics were crowned when she took her oath of office by placing her left hand not on the Bible and not on the U.S. Constitution, but on a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. She now undoubtedly will become the celeb-du-jour of the New Left, right alongside the foul-mouthed actor Robert De Niro. If the new criteria for being sworn into office is to place your hand on whatever book you happen to like, here are some others: President Trump, The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. Sure, it may be somewhat conceited to use one’s own book to be sworn-in on, but what better representation of Trump’s first term than this? The business advice laid out in The Art clearly is the “dragon energy” (to borrow from Kanye West) underlying his Administration. Sen. Rand Paul, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Just like “The Destroyer” in Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Paul’s...
by Bob Barr | Jun 13, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Bob Barr Fox News.com If current generic congressional polling numbers hold, Republicans will lose their majority in the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 midterm elections – and a Democratic majority in the House will then likely vote to impeach President Trump. Republicans must start doing more now to prevent this nightmare scenario from becoming a reality. Of course, impeachment by the House doesn’t mean President Trump will be moving back to Trump Tower. As one of the leaders of the House impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998, I know from personal experience that the Senate is under no obligation to convict a president after the House votes to impeach. Through June 16, get $100 off the ultimate Garmin GPS watch with multisport features and advanced color mapping. A two-thirds vote of the Senate – meaning 67 votes – is required to convict a president of impeachment charges and tell him, in effect: “You’re fired!” Only 50 senators voted to convict President Clinton on one impeachment charges and 45 voted to convict him on another. Similarly, President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House in 1868 but the Senate also failed to convict him. But the high bar required for an impeachment conviction in the Senate shouldn’t prompt overconfidence by Republicans. It’s important for the GOP to step up the fight now to hold onto majorities in the House and Senate in November, and to prepare to fight the impeachment battle should Democrats become the majority party in the House and possibly the Senate as well. Rather than scattering like rats leaving a sinking ship – as many Republican...
by Bob Barr | Jun 11, 2018 | Uncategorized |
Bob Barr Breitbart There are certain words and terms in the English language that carry negative connotations and conjure unfavorable images in peoples’ minds, regardless of the facts or contexts in which the terms are used. One such term is “assault weapon.” Gun control activists long ago discovered that if they use the term “assault weapon” to describe a firearm, the vast majority of people reading or hearing such term, will picture in their mind a rifle capable of fully automatic fire; this despite the fact that private possession of fully automatic firearms has been essentially unlawful for more than eight decades The gun control movement’s love affair with the term “assault weapon” began in the mid-1980s in California. On July 18, 1984, one James Huberty murdered 21 individuals (and injured many more) at a fast-food restaurant in San Ysidro. None of the three firearms he used for his horrendous killing spree was capable of fully automatic fire; thus, none was an “assault weapon” as the term had for decades been used to describe military firearms having that capability. Still, the term provided sufficient emotional horsepower for gun control legislators in California to ban civilian, semi-auto “assault weapons” five years later, in 1989. The romance blossomed in the mid-1990s, when Congress enacted a ten-year federal ban on “assault weapons.” In recent years, almost always spurred by a mass murder involving firearms, several states have passed laws banning such firearms. In every instance in which federal or state officials have moved against “assault weapons” legislatively, the language follows the same narrative: “These are weapons of war that are made for...
